Radiant Nights
by JMenace
Summary: Since she left him, frigid as the setting moon, there is nothing she loathes as much as the light of dawn on the clouds. But as in all things, the sun falls with its regrets, and the moon rises again with the light of a new love. (Alternate Universe)
1. The Greatest Romantic

I'm not apologizing for this one. (The first half of the summary is taken from _Mibu No Tadamine_)

* * *

The sun had long given way to the moon and its mournful rays when Jiraiya, legendary Gama Sennin of Mount Myouboku, stumbled into his fancy hotel suite to check on his godson.

The two of them had spent most of the day burning through the Capital's famous Star Festival, rushing from event to event and occasionally taking to the very expensive, very ancient rooftops when they got fed up with the crowds- the samurai hadn't been pleased, but Naruto had been determined to see as much as there was to be seen, and Jiraiya really didn't have the heart to deny him. It wasn't like the kid's parents would ever have the time to show him such simple pleasures, being the people they were. Not to say that Jiraiya wasn't a very busy man himself, of course- he was just good like that.

The paper door to their suite slid open with a quiet rasp. Jiraiya kicked his geta off like the drunken legend that he was, which was to say with force and precision, punching both right through the doors to the hotel kitchen. He winced.

So maybe paper doors weren't the best choice.

Setting aside the threat to his deposit for another time, Jiraiya crept through the suite's grandiose living area and peered into the room Naruto had claimed as his own. He'd dropped his godson off to get some rest just before sundown, because they'd traveled a hefty distance and Capital festivals ran long, anyway. There would be more than enough time for them to hit all the major attractions._ All _of them.

Jiraiya giggled, patting the notebook where he recorded his research, kept in the pocket over his heart where it belonged. He'd gotten quite a bit done after putting his godson to bed.

"Speaking of," he muttered, leaning against the door frame, "where have you gotten off to?" Naruto's bed was a mess of discarded pillows and sheets, with a very conspicuous lack of Naruto to go along with them.

Jiraiya spent a few minutes staggering around their suite and drunkenly calling out for his charge before he remembered he was a legendary shinobi and reached out for the kid's chakra signature. He stepped out onto the balcony connected to his own room moments later, the midsummer breeze peppering him with pleasant little kisses. He crossed his arms, eying the blond boy sitting on the railing.

"Nightmare?" He asked. The six year old jumped at the sound of his voice, though he thankfully didn't fall off. Jiraiya was far too drunk to go jumping after him- or not drunk enough, maybe.

"Sensei!" Naruto blinked, his question registering, and shook his head. "No, I stayed up."

"And why didn't you tell me you weren't tired, brat?" Jiraiya growled, wrapping the boy up and ruffling his hair with extreme prejudice. "We could have gathered research together!"

"Mom says I can't look at your research! It'll make my hair gray like Kakashi-sensei, and I'll go blind!" Naruto squealed, kicking his little feet and battering Jiraiya with his little fists. "'Sides, I had fun here!"

"Oh yeah? How's that?" Jiraiya paused in his ruffling, and Naruto pointed up at the night sky. Countless stars speckled the dark expanse, glimmering reflections of the festival lights still going strong below them. Seemingly in the center of them all was the moon, full and shining with faint silver light.

"It's pretty," his godson murmured. It was.

"So you've been staring at the moon all night, eh?" he asked, and Naruto nodded mutely. Letting him go, Jiraiya leaned on the railing and considered the festival below them. "Doesn't sound very fun to me."

Naruto scrunched his six year old face up in his thinking expression, and Jiraiya chuckled. Got him every time, the thinking face. "Sensei?" he finally asked. Jiraiya looked at him sidelong, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know if you love something?"

Well now.

Jiraiya hummed, weighing the pros and cons of answering seriously. On the one hand, he probably wouldn't realize Jiraiya wasn't being serious if he tried joking about it, which could lead to some tragic six year old heartbreak. On the other hand, Jiraiya's actual opinions on the subject were somewhat heavy, and influenced by several tragedies of his own. Also, boobs.

"I think your parents would know better than I do," he decided, because Kushina would be furious with him no matter what he said. Naruto shook his blond head, frustrated.

"I asked, but they just told me about how they love me. Mom says I'm too young to worry about how she and dad love each other." He turned the big watery blues on Jiraiya, and gods help him if those didn't get him even more often than the thinking face. "Please, sensei?"

"Fine, fine! Just get those eyes away from me," he said, poking the boy out of his line of sight. "Tell me how you feel, and we'll go from there." These affections of his could only run so deep, his alcohol-addled mind assured him. The Gallant Jiraiya could handle a six year old's schoolyard crush.

"I feel... fuzzy," Naruto said, turning his gaze skyward. "Whenever I look at it, I-"

"It?" Jiraiya shook his head, burying his face in his hands in theatrical grief. Off right from the start. "You can't love an it, kid. Loving a woman is all about communication- if you treat her like the divine, she'll be your goddess forever. If you treat her like something less than human, she'll tear you apart like one."

... Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

"My goddess?" Naruto said, softly, as if rolling the words around in his mouth to get a taste for them. Jiraiya peeked through his fingers and saw the boy's eyes crinkle. "Got it."

"Good. Don't forget it." Satisfied, Jiraiya closed the gaps in his fingers. It was easier to ignore how utterly hammered he was when it was just him and his slightly musky fingers. What an eager little lady that Chiyeko had been. "Now, fuzzy?"

"Yeah. When I look at her, my chest feels like- like when you sit on your foot too long and try to move it around. It gets sorta hard to breathe, but not in a bad way. It makes me smile, sometimes." His godson fidgeted, voice turning shy in a way that Jiraiya had thought impossible for any spawn of Kushina's. "No one else does, but I think she's the prettiest girl in the world."

That was so adorable it was upsetting his stomach. "What's she like, aside from pretty?"

"I don't know a lot about her," Naruto admitted, sounding pained. "But... I think she's sad."

"Why's that?"

The faint sound of rustling cloth as Naruto shrugged was his only answer. "All I know is I want to know more about her, and..."

"And?" Jiraiya peeked through his fingers again, this time bearing witness to the bizarre phenomena that was a bashful Naruto.

"I want her to feel like I do," he mumbled. Jiraiya blinked. Looked up from his hands.

And laughed.

"Hey, hey! What's funny, sensei!?" Naruto cried, slapping him on the back, but Jiraiya just shook his head and laughed harder.

"You," he forced out between chortles, batting the boy's hands aside and ruffling his hair again, "are more like your father every time I see you, kiddo."

"Dad says all he gave me was his good looks," Naruto disagreed, though it didn't stop him from grinning at the comparison.

"If he was lucky, maybe." Jiraiya shook his head, regarding his godson mirthfully. "Well, I'm no expert-" Not with _this _kind of love, wink wink nudge nudge. "- but I'd say you're doing a pretty good job loving this girl so far. The next step is introducing yourself to her. Can't feel the same way about you if she doesn't know you."

Naruto considered this, starlight shimmering in his ridiculously blue eyes. "How? She's so far away..."

Jiraiya chuckled grandly. It had been more than a few years since his cute little student had asked him how to approach Whirlpool's feistiest refugee, but the advice he'd given Minato was still clear as day in his mind. "First, you prove that you're worthy of her affections! If she does not swoon at the very sight of you, you've already failed; if her heart does not flutter at the touch of your voice, you've got no chance; if her breath does not catch when you lock eyes, don't even leave your house!"

Jiraiya threw himself away from the railing, gesturing wildly to his stunned godson. "You must be the embodiment of seduction, the epitome of suave, the culmination of all that is masculine. She may seem far now, but you'll never know for sure until you close that distance. Reach out and grab her! Tell her your name, and when she asks why she should care, sweep her away in your unrelenting maelstrom of love!"

He paused, making sure he hadn't forgotten anything, and then nodded firmly. Naruto, for his part, seemed lost for words. Jiraiya let him be. It had taken Minato a while to process his sagely musings, but he'd come around in the end. He smiled, lost in fond reminiscence.

So lost, in fact, that he almost didn't notice when his godson reached up, grasping at the air above his head with frightening intensity in his eyes.

"Hello!" he called, his wispy little voice carrying up into the sky. "My name is Naruto, and you should care because I love you! Please take care of me."

Jiraiya choked back another laugh, grinning widely at the boy's earnest expression. "Don't get ahead of yourself, now. You're not getting married just yet." At his crestfallen look, he hastened to add, "Not bad at all for a practice run, though!"

"Practice run?"

"Yes, generally you can't introduce yourself to a girl if she isn't there."

Naruto tilted his head, and with the grasping hand that he had yet to lower, pointed up at the sky. "But she's right there."

Jiraiya followed the path of his finger all the way up to the moon.

"... I'm sorry?"

"She's there," Naruto helpfully repeated. Jiraiya double checked. Yes, his godson was pointing to the moon.

How drunk was he again? "Naruto, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three."

Wait, fuck.

"Just so we're clear here," Jiraiya said, shaking what cobwebs from his head that he could, "we've been talking about the moon this whole time?"

Naruto nodded, smiling warmly. "She's pretty, isn't she? My goddess."

Did... he just turn his godson into a monk? Please do not tell him he just turned Minato and Kushina's darling shinobi-to-be into a monk. His drunk ass was _so dead_.

"Naruto," he said, clearing his throat and assuming the gravest tone he could muster. "I think there have been a few miscommunications here. What I really meant by 'unrelenting maelstrom of love' was-"

"Can you teach me, sensei?" Naruto asked, and _god damn those big watery blues_.

"Teach you what?" He asked warily.

"How to be the embodiment of seduction, the epi-" He paused, nose scrunching. "E-pi-to-me of suave, and the culmination of all that is masculine!" Naruto grinned.

"So that you can woo the moon." He had to be sure.

"Right!"

"Naruto," he tried again. "Have your parents ever told you about the birds and bees?" Naruto shook his head. "Has _anyone _told you about the birds and bees?"

"I like birds."

God damn it. Jiraiya slammed his hands down on the railing, once again thankfully not startling his godson off of the building. "You know what, kid? You're on. I'll teach you how to woo every fair lady this world has to offer! When I'm done with you there won't be a single feminine body that can resist your charms, celestial or otherwise!" Because there wasn't a chance in the Shinigami's stomach that it was going to be _him _that explained sexuality to his six year old godson.

"Really!?" Naruto cried, brimming with excitement.

"Really."

So he'd just teach him how to seduce the moon instead.


	2. The Turncoat Prince

Uchiha Sasuke's life came crashing down at seven years old, torn out from under him in a flash of sky blue eyes and flying thunder.

It happened on a quiet, unassuming day. A happy day, even. Sasuke came through the gates to the Uchiha Compound at a light jog late in the afternoon, having stayed after class to practice the kenjutsu techniques Itachi had been showing him off and on. He wasn't making very much progress at all, but he was in good spirits nonetheless. His skills with kunai, so far behind his older brother, had nonetheless netted him a perfect score in the latest examination.

Sasuke had performed better than everyone else in his class, just like Itachi did when he was Sasuke's age, and for that he was happy. He had proud news for his father, and for that he was _ecstatic_.

His clansmen greeted him on his way to his home in the heart of the compound, each of his aunts, uncles, and cousins invariably glad to see him. He waved back to all of them with a bright little grin and a few hasty words, eager to give his parents and maybe his brother the news, if he was back. Itachi hadn't been around to see him off to the Academy that morning, despite being on leave from ANBU for the week- hadn't even been home. Sasuke had been curious about it all day. Maybe a little worried, too, though he would never admit to it.

Luckily, he would never have to. Sasuke yelped as he suddenly found himself running forehead-first into a pair of slender yet strong fingers. He flinched back, blinking up at his older brother armored figure, and then grinned a little wider. It looked like his day was only getting better.

"Good afternoon, Sasuke."

"Itachi!" He said excitedly, twisting around to pull the Academy instructor's evaluation report from his backpack. "We had a kenjutsu test today, and I used that trick with my wrists like you told me-" Sasuke turned back to his brother, clutching the sheet of paper, and his voice died in his throat.

He had only looked away for a moment to dig through his backpack, but in the space of that moment, he was suddenly _there_. A man a full head and shoulders taller than Itachi, clasping the off-duty shinobi's shoulder and watching Sasuke with warm amusement sparkling in his sky blue eyes.

Aside from his exceptional height- in comparison to Sasuke's thirteen year old brother, anyway- and striking eyes, Sasuke found himself drawn to the sudden arrival's hair. It was the color of the midday sun, a single shade brighter than golden, and it fell down to his shoulders in wild barbs that somehow made him look all the more dignified for its disarray. It was clear as day that he was a shinobi, from the hitai ate every so slightly obscured by his hair to the jonin flak jacket that clung tightly to him.

Finally, last of all for some reason, Sasuke noticed the voluminous red and white robes that were draped comfortably across the man's shoulders, and the tip of a conical hat poking up over his shoulder. A quick glance at the distant face of the Hokage Mountain was all it took to confirm it, and Sasuke made the connection. He gasped, shoving his examination report back where it came from and bowing low.

"Hokage-sama!"

The man, the _Hokage_, laughed and took his hand off of Itachi's shoulder to wave Sasuke's tension away. "At ease, Uchiha-san," he said, not quite managing a stern tone. Sasuke nodded after a brief moment's hesitation, stricken by the sheer enormity of the Hokage's presence. He had heard so many stories, from so many people...

"Is Itachi going on another mission?" He asked after gathering his wits and straightening up. He wrestled his voice into the clear, cool tone that his father always greeted guests with.

He hoped Itachi wasn't going on another mission. He still had three days of recovery before he was supposed to go back to ANBU.

"Not today," the Hokage said, sharing a knowing look with Itachi when Sasuke relaxed. "I was hoping to talk to your father, actually. Could you go get him for me?"

Sasuke nodded quickly, a familiar rush of pride coursing through him at the prospect of proving his worth- not as an Uchiha, this time, but as a future shinobi of Konoha. Before he could stamp down on the impulse, he found himself asking, "Is this a mission, Hokage-sama?"

He snapped his mouth shut immediately after, as if to trap the words before they could reach the legendary shinobi, but the last syllable danced precociously away from him. Itachi sighed, one part exasperation, one part amusement. Sasuke's face burned.

The Hokage didn't snap at him, or even laugh, though his eyes were bright with amusement as he nodded. "Of course, Uchiha-san," he murmured. "I'll have the payment forwarded to you as soon as I get back to my office."

Sasuke sketched another bow and hurried past the two shinobi before he could embarrass himself any further, and in doing so finally turned his attention back to the rest of the compound.

Nobody was greeting him anymore. Nobody was moving, either. They were all staring at Itachi and the Hokage, seemingly frozen in time. For a second, Sasuke didn't think they were even breathing. Then one of his younger cousins tugged on her mother's hand and asked her what everyone was looking at, and the trance that had overtaken the compound broke as dozens of Uchiha came alive with furtive whispers and shuffling.

Sasuke smiled ruefully to himself as he continued on to his home. At least he wasn't the only one caught flat-footed by the village leader's sudden arrival.

The paper doors to his home slide open with a sharp rasp, and not a second later his mother's voice came drifting out from the kitchen. "Sasuke, is that you? You're home late, young man!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, dropping his backpack on the floor but ignoring the indoor geta in favor of calling back into the house. "I was practicing my kenjutsu! I got a perfect score on my test because I've been using the techniques Itachi showed me."

A faint but happy exclamation was his answer, and his mother appeared in the hall with a small plate of sliced fruit in her hands. Uchiha Mikoto smiled brightly at her son, her features- so _Uchiha_\- lighting up in a way that startled Sasuke every time he saw it.

"I knew you'd do well," she said, coming to the edge of the hall where the mud room began and crouching down to offer him some fruit. "We'll be having dinner soon, but I thought you'd be in the mood for a snack after all that extra practice."

Sasuke dutifully popped a slice of mango into his mouth, chewing happily. He was very hungry, after all. "Before that," he said, grabbing a slice of apple after some thought. "Where's dad?"

Mikoto took a bit of mango for herself and waved a hand vaguely behind her. "In his office, brooding over some police report or another last I saw him." Her expressive eyes, such a sharp contrast to his father's, crinkled at the edges. "Want to tell him about your test?"

"Well, yes," Sasuke admitted, before straightening up with grave purpose. "But I also have to tell him that Hokage-sama wants to see him." Wait. Was he allowed to tell his mother, too?

Before he could really start sweating about the potential blunder, shock flickered across Mikoto's lovely features, dashing the smile from her lips. Sasuke was surprised by her surprise, until he realized that this was the Hokage they were talking about. A personal visit was going to be a shock no matter who you were, he reasoned.

"The Hokage," she whispered. "Who told you this?"

"Hokage-sama did. He's waiting outside, by Zenko's house."

Mikoto rocked back onto her heels, inhaling a slow breath. "I see." Exhale. "Did you two arrive at the same time?"

"I think I got here first," Sasuke said, his brow furrowing in thought. "I don't know, though. I was talking to Itachi, and I looked away for a second to get something from my backpack. When I looked back, he wasjust _there_." It really did sound silly when he put it like that. He'd probably just missed the Hokage somewhere off to the side in his excitement.

"Oh," Mikoto breathed, looking like she did not find it silly in the slightest. "_Oh._" She set the plate of fruit down in front of Sasuke and was gone in a flash of whirling cloth and fine raven hair.

She returned with Fugaku not a minute later, and Sasuke froze with an orange slice halfway to his mouth at the sheer _thunder_ in his father's expression. The Uchiha head swept past Sasuke without a word, stepped into his sandals, and then inhaled slowly, just like Mikoto had done. Then he looked down at Sasuke, his expression smoothing from stormy to cool detachment.

"Take us to him," Fugakua commanded.

"Yes, sir!" Sasuke nodded, striding out of the house at a pace just short of a run. His parents still outpaced him within moments, his father forgetting the order to lead almost as soon as he made it. Sasuke managed to keep up with them with only a few short bursts of speed here and there, until they stopped dead in their tracks. His father went very, very tense.

Sasuke peered around them and found the Hokage and Itachi in much the same place as before, except this time there was a familiar looking woman standing with them. She was almost as tall as the Hokage, maybe an inch or two shorter than Sasuke's own father, and her mane of crimson red hair sparked an immediate memory. This was one of his mother's friends- he'd seen them chatting over tea on his way out to train or follow Itachi around more than once. If he remembered right, her name was-

"Kushina," Mikoto called, clearly happy to see the other woman. All the same, there was a certain tension in her voice. A certain something that Sasuke couldn't put a name to. For the first time since bumping into Itachi, he felt unnerved.

"Mikoto!" The new addition cried delightedly, waving. "It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten what you looked like!"

"Three days, I believe," Mikoto replied dryly. The underlying tension remained unchanged.

Kushina crossed her arms over her chest, a sudden frown marring her lips. "Now look, Minato, you've got her all nervous. I told you the robes were a bad idea."

The Hokage spoke for the first time since Sasuke's return, rubbing his neck and saying sheepishly, "It wasn't quite my idea, you know. Itachi is very persuasive." Itachi had told the Hokage what to wear? And he had _listened?_ Sasuke found himself regarding Itachi with even more respect than before, if such a thing were possible.

The bloody-redhead considered this, and then turned her stern frown on the young ANBU standing with them. Itachi, for his part, broke the staring contest he'd been engaging their father in and bowed his head in silent apology.

"He looks striking in them," he said quietly. Kushina hummed, her stormy gray eyes roving back over the Hokage. Finally, she heaved a defeated sigh.

"He does, doesn't he?" Itachi nodded solemnly.

"If I may," Fugaku said, apparently fed up with waiting to be addressed. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" The Hokage blinked, looking to Sasuke's father with some slight surprise, as if he'd just noticed his presence.

"Ah, yes. Are you planning a coup d'etat, Fugaku?"

The Uchiha clan froze for the second time that day. Clansmen that had been milling about and covertly listening in on their conversation stumbled to a stop in whatever it was they were pretending to do. Some dropped what was in their hands. Others gasped. Sasuke's mother closed her eyes, and Itachi mirrored the gesture from his place by the Hokage's side. The mischief faded from Kushina's expression, but her smile remained. Just a little sadder, now.

Fugaku, for his part, did not react at all. He met the Hokage's laughing blue eyes stonily, and replied without missing a beat.

"The Uchiha serve Konoha, Hokage-sama."

His words were sharp and clear. They cut through the sudden frozen stillness with ease, and Sasuke felt a fierce surge of pride burn its way up from his gut at the sound of it. He didn't know what a "coup d'etat" was, not then, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever the Hokage was asking his father, Fugaku had answered correctly.

It was this moment that Sasuke would look back on in the years to come, with helpless fury at himself for his naivety, at his father for his answer, and most of all, at the Hokage for what came next.

"I see." The Hokage said, several beats of silence later. He favored the Uchiha head with a smile, and it might have been Sasuke's imagination, but he thought that Fugaku's rigid bearing eased. If only just.

"Well!" Mikoto said, clapping her hands and shattering whatever lingering stillness was left in the compound. Sasuke's clansmen hurried to collect their dropped possessions and hurry on their way. "I wasn't expecting guests, but I'm sure we can find food for two more if you'd like to join us for dinner," she told Kushina.

"That sounds great," Kushina said. There was something heavy in the words, though. Some regretful anticipation.

"So long as we're not intruding," the Hokage agreed. "First, though, would you mind gathering your clan's shinobi?"

This time, Fugaku did react. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth, and for one single, terrifying moment his eyes bled crimson. Sasuke's mother moaned, and the despair in it made Sasuke's heart clench. The unease came back in full force, and he inevitably turned to Itachi for some guidance in his confusion. Itachi wasn't looking at him, though. He only had eyes for the Hokage.

"Of course," Fugaku ground out. He made a sharp gesture, and several nearby clansmen darted away to the four corners of the compound. "Sasuke. Return home until dinner."

"Actually," the Hokage interjected before Sasuke could make good on the command. "I think he should stay."

Fugaku's lips drew back, as if he meant to snarl at the village's leader. "He just entered the Academy. He's still in his first year." The legendary shinobi raised a single almost-golden eyebrow, and now Fugaku did snarl. "He is my _son_."

"He just performed a mission for me," the Hokage pointed out. Mikoto shivered, a choked little gasp slipping past her lips, and Kushina immediately closed the distance between the two of them.

"Oh, honey, none of that," the fiery woman murmured, wrapping Sasuke's mother up in her arms. And then, to Sasuke's alarm, his ever serene, ever smiling, ever _Uchiha _mother collapsed against her friend and began to sob.

"Mom-?" He whispered, reaching up to touch the hem of her dress. A slender hand grabbed his wrist and gently turned it away, and a soft poke to his forehead alerted Sasuke to the fact that his brother had crossed the distance between them as well.

Itachi shook his head when Sasuke looked desperately up to him. "Not yet."

It took a bit less than ten minutes to gather all the clan's shinobi that were currently in the village, though it felt infinitely longer standing there listening to his mother's quiet cries. When the last of them touched down around their group, Kushina raised herself from her soothing cooing to give the Hokage a nod.

"That's the last one."

The Hokage gave her a thankful smile, which she returned before turning back to Sasuke's mother. Then he cleared his throat and addressed the Uchiha clan's best and brightest.

"I'm told you're all in the loop, here, so I won't waste your time with pleasantries. Form a line." He swept his right arm out, shifting his unwieldy robes aside and sitting down with his legs crossed, pulling an ink brush from one of the pockets in his flak jacket. He smiled faintly at the gathered shinobi. "First one up gets a lollipop."

There was a single moment, as brief and as terrifying as when he had seen his father's sharingan flash, in which the gathered shinobi looked not to the Hokage for orders, but Fugaku. Sasuke would not realize it until much later, but this had been their last chance. Their best and final opportunity to set their plans in motion once and for all. All Fugaku had to do was give the order, and the full might of the Uchiha clan would fall upon the Hokage in an instant. He wasn't even standing up.

Of course, Sasuke would also come to realize that he had put himself in such a vulnerable position entirely on purpose. It was a statement, for the whole clan to hear. It didn't matter what kind of advantage they had over him, in the end. _They _didn't matter, in the end.

"Form a line," Fugaku echoed, the words seeming to physically pain him as he forced them from his throat, and the moment passed. The gathered shinobi- genin, chunin, and jonin alike- shuffled into a single line before the Hokage. His father moved forward to the front of the line, but on some silent agreement amongst the rest of them, another Uchiha stepped past him with a polite bow and quiet apology. The first to kneel before the Hokage was a chunin that had escorted Sasuke home from the Academy more than once when his parents and Itachi weren't available. Koji bowed his head, his face a mask of deference, and waited for the Hokage's judgement.

There was a thick, syrupy tension in the air as what seemed like the entire clan waited to see what the legendary shinobi would do. Sasuke wasn't the only one who didn't know what he had in mind as punishment, although he was one of the only Uchiha present who didn't know why he was handing it out in the first place. Civilians on the fringe and shinobi waiting in line held their breath as the Hokage reached up and tapped a finger against Koji's hitai ate.

The almost-golden haired man said something Sasuke couldn't make out from his place at the back of the line, and Koji nodded sharply, and pulled the plated cloth from his forehead with two quick jerks of his hands. The Hokage tapped his brush against his bare hand, and to Sasuke's surprise it sank an inch or two into his skin. When he pulled it back out, it was wet with ink.

The Uchiha compound held its breath as the Hokage drew on Koji's forehead. It didn't take him long to finish, less than a minute. When he was done he tapped his finger to Koji's head again, and it came away clean despite the ink that had been wet on the chunin's skin only seconds ago. Then, true to his word, he offered the teenager a lollipop from one of the pockets in his flak jacket.

Koji took it with trembling fingers. The civilians that were in a position to see him had all turned away, looking furious and nauseous in equal measure. Visibly gathering himself, Sasuke's cousin raised himself to his feet and turned to face his fellow shinobi.

He wouldn't have gotten a more explosive reaction if he'd stabbed them all in the face.

Younger shinobi cursed. Older shinobi cursed as well, but quietly, and with more passion. Sasuke saw hands clenched, footing lost, and composure stripped away all at once as his clan's strongest members looked upon the Hokage's punishment. Sasuke squinted, just barely able to see the curves and lines of dried ink, but wholly unable to decipher them.

"Itachi," he whispered. "What is that?"

"The Yondaime Hokage's mark," Itachi said lowly. "The Flying Thunder God." Sasuke inhaled sharply. He knew what _that _meant. Everyone knew how the Yondaime had won the Third Great Shinobi War, after all.

Fugaku was next in line, and then Mikoto with Kushina's assistance, and on and on down the line. The Yondaime made quick work of the gathered shinobi, working himself up to a rhythm that had him gliding through the motions of drawing his seal in less than ten seconds per shinobi. Then, finally, there was no one left between Sasuke and the Hokage but for Itachi. His older brother dropped into a crouch before the Hokage.

"Well now, Itachi," the Yondaime said wryly, dipping his brush into the ink lurking beneath his skin and starting in on the ANBU's already bare forehead. "We've done what we can. It's up to them from here." He tapped a finger to his mark when he was done inking it, and this close up Sasuke saw it flash a vibrant sky blue before sinking into his brother's skin.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Itachi said, and the sheer relief in his voice was such a sharp contrast to everything else going on that it seemed to throweveryone for a loop. Except, of course, for the Yondaime and his fiery companion. Sasuke's brother tied his hitai ate back on, not over the seal like the rest of his clansmen, but around his neck. The Yondaime's mark stood out proudly on his brow.

Sasuke felt a hand fall upon his shoulder a grip it tightly, and he jerked up to look into his father's grim face. He wasn't wearing a hitai ate, hadn't worn one since he retired before Sasuke was born, so instead he'd wound clean white bandages over the mark. Mikoto stood beside him, similarly bandaged and with a tearful little smile of reassurance for him. Kushina had returned to the Yondaime's side, and both of them seemed content to wait for Sasuke.

"Remember this moment, Sasuke," Fugaku said, almost under his breath. His bottomless black eyes were narrow and furious, and when he spoke his voice shook with the effort it took for him to control it. "Remember this moment, when your brother betrayed us. Remember this moment, when the Hokage shackled you to him for no fault of your own. Never forget it." His grip tightened until it was well past painful, and Sasuke grit his teeth down on a sound of pain. "_Remember this_."

He would.

"Hello again, Uchiha-san," the Yondaime greeted him when he knelt in front of him, with that same mock-seriousness that did not at all fit the atmosphere anymore. "You did very well today. In fact, I think a little something extra on top of your payment is in order. Something strawberry-flavored, maybe. What say you?"

"How many times must I tell you to stop smuggling candy in your flak jacket before you'll listen?" Kushina asked, her tone one of endless suffering.

"Before I'll listen?" He hummed thoughtfully, dipping his brush into his palm again. He winked at Sasuke. "You'd have to tell me for a while, I think." Kushina scoffed.

"Just don't come crying to me when you get stabbed because you reached for a kunai and came up with a lollipop."

"Learn from my mistakes, Uchiha-san," the Yondaime murmured gravely, pressing the brush to Sasuke's brow. The ink was warm. "Never marry an Uzumaki." Said Uzumaki scowled, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Don't you listen to this nancy boy, Sasuke," she said, and Sasuke couldn't help but crack a grin at the offended look on the Hokage's face as he mouthed 'nancy boy?'. "If you can find an Uzumaki girl your age, you snatch her up right away! You'll never find a better wife. This guy really doesn't deserve me." She sniffed, bumping the Hokage with her hip. He didn't falter for a second in his sealing, but his eyes danced as he worked.

"Can't disagree with that," he admitted.

"Hokage-sama," Sasuke said, his nerves eased just enough by their banter to pose the question that had been churning away in his head since his clan's shinobi had arrived. "Can I- _May I _ask you something?"

"Of course."

Sasuke took a moment to gather himself, waiting until the Yondaime had tapped a finger to his forehead, sealing the mark into his skin. Then he asked, "Why am I the only civilian in line?"

The Yondaime rested one hand on his crossed legs, and propped his chin up with the other, studying Sasuke. Beside him, Kushina crouched down and ran her hands through Sasuke's hair with a comforting little smile. Sasuke didn't mean to lean into her hand, but he did. The feeling was achingly similar to the one he got when his mother cared for him in his times of distress.

"I came here to save your family, today," the Yondaime finally said.

"From what?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Themselves, mostly," he admitted, and Kushina snorted beside him, muttering something under her breath. He looked chidingly to her, and then he turned back to Sasuke with _real _gravity in his bearing, not the fake kind he'd been favoring Sasuke with since showing up.

"I put this seal on your clan's shinobi because of your older brother," he said. Sasuke looked sharply to his brother, standing quietly off to the side, separate from the rest of their clansmen. His father's words tumbled around in his head. "He convinced me it's what they need right now," the Yondaime continued, pulling his attention back. He tapped Sasuke's forehead again, the gesture just as familiar as Kushina's, but for different reasons.

"So I think it's only fair that you be the one to convince me they don't need it anymore, when the time comes." Sky blue eyes peered at Sasuke, _into _Sasuke, and the Hokage asked, "Do you think you're up to the task?"

Sasuke breathed in shakily, feeling the weight of his entire clan's attention upon him. He was young, he had yet to grasp the full consequences of this, of how difficult his life was going to be in the years to follow. But he understood one thing, and he understood it well. The Yondaime was offering his family a way out of the shackles he'd just locked them in, and that way lay in Sasuke. He was offering Sasuke a chance to do what he'd always dreamed of doing- to prove his worth.

Even more than that, he was offering Sasuke a chance to prove the _Uchiha's _worth. Not Itachi, not Fugaku, not anybody else. He was placing the pride and freedom of Sasuke's clan entirely in his hands.

How could he ever refuse?

"Yes, Hokage-sama!"


	3. The Caged Bird

When Hyuuga Hinata turned three years old and condemned her cousin to the main house's cursed seal, Neji knew pain. When Hyuuga Hiashi decided that his brother had grown too resentful of his place in the clan and punished him by means of his own cursed mark, Neji knew anger. However, it was not until years after he'd been branded that Neji knew hopelessness.

It started before sunrise, while the moon still hung in the skies above Konoha. A sudden clamor that rocked the Hyuuga Compound down to the last sleeping child had startled Neji awake, tearing him from his dreams in time to see his father rush out of their shared room.

He'd scrambled to his feet and followed hot on Hizashi's heels, having foregone pajamas the night before in his exhaustion, and made it all the way to the private chambers of the clan's elder- and Neji's grandfather, though they might as well not have been related at all for how often they saw each other- before his father told him to stay put. Neji had ached to follow him through the paper doors, which somehow managed to be made of _paper _while also being soundproof, but his father's tone had brooked no argument.

So instead, Neji had stood guard outside his grandfather's chambers and read the lips of those inside with his byakugan.

He immediately regretted it.

In total, there were more than half a dozen Hyuuga gathered, all of them adults, and all of them from the main house but for Hyuuga clan's elder was indeed inside with them, sitting in solemn seiza and sipping a cup of tea while his eldest son, the clan head, explained the situation to his youngest.

"I caught the ambassador no more than twenty yards from the gates. He entered and planned to leave through what seems to be a collective blind spot in our guards' field of view- rectify that _immediately_, Tomeo."

"Yes, Hiashi-sama."

"- At which point I intercepted him and offered his life in exchange for the hostage," Hiashi continued to mouth, and Neji felt a nauseous little jolt in his stomach as he read the word hostage. Someone had been kidnapped? Who? _Why?_ "He attempted to flee. I struck him down."

The words were clipped, precise. Neji's byakugan, immature as it was, could clearly pick out the lines of tension in Hiashi's bearing. He was shaken.

"A single blow to the heart," the elder murmured, his lips hardly moving above the rim of his cup. "Textbook form, I'm sure."

Hiashi's jaw quivered. "He took my daughter. What would you have done, father?" Neji's eyes grew very wide, and inside the room Hizashi stiffened in similar shock. Someone had tried to kidnap the heiress to the clan. Someone had tried to kidnap Neji's sweet baby cousin.

"I would have done much the same, I imagine. That does not make it the right choice."

"You know what they would have done to her. She just turned _seven_."

"Yes," Neji's grandfather said, softly. "And so I would have killed him, too."

Hizashi stepped farther into the room, reaching out to grip his brother's shoulder. "How is Hinata?" he asked.

Hiashi closed his eyes. "Traumatized. Sick with anxiety. But unharmed."

Neji relaxed, mirroring his father. Hizashi gave his brother's shoulder a firm squeeze and then turned to the rest of the room's inhabitants, looking as if he was preparing himself for the truly bad news. He traded a look with the elder that Neji couldn't quite parse through the byakugan's warped perceptions, and accepted a cup of tea from the old man before asking the question Neji was burning to ask himself.

"What now?"

All eyes fell upon the elder, who took a slow sip of tea before answering. "Your brother broke an alliance the day it was formed. It's a record, but I doubt Kumo will be impressed."

"They invaded our grounds and made off with one of our own," a Hyuuga with a jonin's flack jacket worn over his yukata protested. "That can't possibly be permitted."

"Surely not," the elder agreed. "Assuming we can prove this to the Hokage. And assuming that the Raikage cares to listen."

"I sent a chunin to inform Minato-sama of what happened," Hiashi said, and then, firmly, "He will believe us."

The elder sighed. "One hopes."

And so they talked, and talked, and talked, until Neji had nothing left to feed into the tenketsu in his eyes and his byakugan flickered and died. They talked, and he stood watch, yearning for his father to come out and worrying about his cousin in equal measure. He waited while the halls swarmed with panicked Hyuuga, and then purposeful Hyuuga, and finally no Hyuuga at all.

At one point the young branch house member that escorted him to and from the Academy tried to urge him from the door. He refused. She told him that he'd be late for class if he didn't hurry. He refused. She threatened to tell his father he was being difficult. Neji politely dared her to interrupt the meeting he was in to do so.

She left him alone.

Neji didn't know how long he stood outside the door, wondering what was being said inside and what was going on outside, knowing that there was nothing he could do but wait for his father to explain it to him. It was frustrating and made him sick to his stomach, but the alternative was even worse. So he stood there, accepted a small tray of snacks from a pair of branch house members at some point in the night- day?- and waited.

He was just beginning to contemplate turning his byakugan back on when a stir of panicked voices further down the hall broke the suffocating silence.

"Hokage-sama, please, if you'll just allow us to inform Hiashi-sama of your arrival-" came a voice that Neji vaguely recognized as belonging to one of the gate guards.

"Ah, what's the fun in that?" a man that Neji could only assume to be the Hokage asked. "It's so difficult getting the jump on Hiashi these days, you know. I might not get another chance like this."

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama," the guard said, voice strained, "I do not think this is the _time-_"

And then a man Neji had only ever seen carved into a mountain rounded the corner, crimson red and white robes whirling gently behind him as he strode down the hall. His eyes flitted from room to room, and suddenly they settled on Neji, and he felt the weight of a Kage's notice fall upon his shoulders. He shot straight up from the slouch he had fallen into over the hours, standing at full attention.

Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, grinned. "Hyuuga-san!" he called. A moment later the gate guard came rushing after him, the telltale veins of their bloodline bulging in his eyes, followed closely by...

A Kumo nin?

Neji found himself frozen on the spot as the foreign shinobi approached. He was tall, standing a full head above the chunin gate guard with a fair bit more muscle to go along with the height. His skin was dusky, his hair a shade darker and cropped close to his head, and he wore the white and maroon garb that characterized most Kumo nin. His eyes, narrow and green, moved constantly from wall to floor to ceiling and back, greedily drinking in the world around him as he moved down the hall.

Then the Hokage was there, right in front of him, and Neji forced himself to look up.

"Good afternoon, Hyuuga-san," the Yondaime greeted. Neji swallowed.

"Good afternoon, Hokage-sama."

"You're Hinata's cousin, am I right? Neji?" he asked. Neji nodded stiffly. "Is she doing well?"

"She is... unharmed," Neji said, after some thought. "But not well." The shinobi from Kumo snorted.

"Poor girl," the Yondaime murmured. "Is there anything I can do, Neji?"

Neji hesitated. "Is Naruto-sama with you?" He had never met the Yondaime personally, but his son visited often enough. Namikaze Naruto was an enigma in many ways, one being his inexplicable fascination with the Hyuuga clan and all of its members, but nobody really minded his presence, and Hinata adored him. Neji had never seen Hinata as happy as she was whenever Naruto was around, and as he looked up at the boy's father he realized that the youngest Namikaze might well be what his cousin needed right now.

"Afraid not," the Yondaime said, though he seemed more thoughtful than apologetic. "He's somewhere in Hot Water with his godfather, last I heard."

"I see." Neji looked down at his feet, warring between his need to wait for his father and his desire to help his cousin. "Then no, I don't think so."

"So Naruto's the ticket, hm?" The Yondaime hummed, glancing at the gate guard and Kumo nin waiting anxiously and impatiently behind him, respectively. "Well then."

He vanished.

He didn't dash, didn't flicker, didn't anything. One second he was there, right before Neji's eyes, and the next he was simply _gone_. And then, before Neji had time to really boggle, he was back just as suddenly. Neji would have written it off as a trick of the light if the other two shinobi in the hall hadn't been just as startled.

Also, if the Yondaime wasn't holding a small blond child like a sack of grain in his right hand.

Said blond child blinked, whirling a pen around in his tiny fingers with surprising dexterity as he surveyed the situation. "Hey, dad."

"Son," the Yondaime cordially replied.

"What's going on?"

"Hinata had a tough night. Her cousin thinks she could use a friend right now."

Naruto's eyes lit up, a shade lighter and more vibrant than his father's. "We're in the Hyuuga compound!?" He bounced in place, still being held about a foot off the ground. "Where is she? I have so much cool stuff to show her!"

"Cool stuff like what's in that notebook?" the Yondaime asked, raising an eyebrow at the pad of paper Naruto was holding in his other hand. The pad of paper that Naruto immediately stuffed into his pocket.

"No, that's a different thing," he said, shaking his head firmly.

The Yondaime crossed his arms, raising Naruto another foot or two off the ground, and eyed his son from beneath his conical hat. "What kind of different thing?"

Naruto grinned cheekily. "_Research._"

With that said, the Hokage's son twisted out of his father's grip, landing nimbly on the hardwood floor and dashing past Neji, down the hall and back towards the main house's quarters. Neji shook his head at the sheer exuberance of Hinata's favorite outsider, allowing himself to ease out of a few of his worries. Whether or not the youngest Namikaze managed to successfully comfort his cousin, he'd do a far better job of it than Neji.

"Maybe Hot Springs Country with sensei wasn't the greatest idea," the Yondaime mused.

"Excuse me," the Kumo nin growled, looking not at all amused.

"Right, right. My apologies, Kusaka," the Yondaime said, turning back to Neji and the elder's chambers and smiling. "Ah, thank you, Hyuuga-san!"

Neji followed the Hokage's gaze to the gate guard, who had taken the opportunity to inch over to the door in an effort to warn the men inside. He froze at the Yondaime's words, and then heaved a nearly imperceptible sigh of defeat and slid the door open. He bowed his head and gestured for them to enter.

The Yondaime swept into the room, and Neji quickly slipped in behind him. He felt the gate guard's incredulous stare, but then the Kumo nin came in behind him, and the chunin was forced to choose between shoving the bulky shinobi aside to grab Neji and letting him get kicked out on his own.

The gate guard shut the door.

Inside, the Hyuuga clan's most influential members regarded the Hokage and his foreign guest with some surprise. The less immediately powerful members tensed a bit in their seats. Neji's father and uncle narrowed their eyes. The elder reacted the most visibly of them all, blinking once at the sudden entrance.

For this particular group of men, that meant quite a bit.

"Hokage-sama," Hizashi said, recovering immediately and bowing his head. "Forgive us. We didn't expect you to answer our message in person." Curiously enough, Neji's uncle didn't say anything.

"Not a problem," the Yondaime said lightly, shifting his hat from his head and gesturing to the Kumo nin, who was looking slightly less surly and slightly more uncomfortable with a room full of icy Hyuuga boring holes into him. "Kusaka thought it best to do this in person."

Neji wrung his hands, inching back into an unoccupied corner of the room as the tension grew yet thicker. Strangely, Hiashi crossed the room without a word and caught him by the shoulders, holding him gently but firmly in place.

"The Raikage has made his reply, then?" Hizashi asked, tone carefully blank.

"He has," Kusaka said, regaining his indignant surliness and glaring right back at every Hyuuga present. No one more so than Neji's father, though. "You killed one of our best shinobi, Hyuuga. Fujishima was one of the good ones. He'd never betray his village like this." He flashed bright white teeth at them. "Raikage-sama calls bullshit."

Wait. Why was he saying Hizashi killed the ambassador? That wasn't right.

"That's not-" Neji began, but Hiashi clamped down hard on his shoulders, silencing him.

"Be silent," he ordered, though not unkindly. His hands remained on Neji's shoulders as he stood protectively over him. Almost... fatherly?

Neji stiffened. No. _No._

"So says the Raikage," the Yondaime murmured. He spread his hands expectantly, looking to Hizashi, not Hiashi, this was _wrong-_ "You claim that Ambassador Fujishima infiltrated this compound late last night and attempted to kidnap your clan's heiress. Do you have any proof?"

"My word," Hizashi said, lifting his chin just so, the mirror image of his brother. _No!_

"Any witnesses?" the Yondaime pressed.

"If a Yamanaka were to examine my daughter's memories they would clearly see-"

"Whatever the hell you want them to see," Kusaka spat. Hizashi sneered, but didn't refute the point.

"The confrontation happened within our compound."

"According to who? _You?_"

The Yondaime sighed. "Well, isn't this awkward?" He waved a hand at Kusaka. "What does the Raikage ask of Konoha for the death of his ambassador, should the Hyuuga be unable to prove their innocence?"

The burly shinobi set his jaw, locking eyes with Hizashi. "Blood for blood. Raikage-sama wants his murderer."

Tomoe, head of the chunin that guarded the compound's gates, inhaled sharply. Several members sitting down stiffened in their seats, and the jonin with his flak jacket on over his yukata rose entirely to his feet in outrage. The elder closed his eyes, bowing his head a fraction of an inch.

No, no, _no, no, NO! _Neji tried to thrash, to scream, to _move_, but he found himself unable to so much as blink as his uncle's fingers dug into his shoulders, strangely hot through his shirt.

"Can he give us time? A few days, to conduct a thorough investigation?" The Yondaime asked quietly.

"Raikage-sama demands immediate justice," Kusaka said, looking very much like he wanted to scoff at the suggestion. "We can't let the murder of our own peacemaker _sit_ the day after he ratified our alliance. Not in good faith," he finished, adding special emphasis to the last two words.

"And if we refuse?"

For the first time since the man from Kumo had turned the corner in the hallway, Neji saw fear in his bearing. The atmosphere in the room shifted subtly around the Hokage, becoming at once sharper and far more dangerous than before. Whatever kind of shinobi Kusaka may have been, he didn't seem at all prepared to match the Hokage. And yet, cowed as he was, he steeled himself and met the legendary Yellow Flash's question head on.

"What we've been holding back all these years," he said simply. "War."

Not a single person moved to break the silence that followed, focused entirely upon the Hokage's reaction.

The Yondaime closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded once. "I understand."

Neji felt his eyes grow hot with tears, but there was nothing he could do to stop them from falling. He couldn't move. Couldn't save his father. Couldn't _stop this_.

Was this what it meant to be a member of the branch house? Was this what it meant to serve? Was this all his father's life, Neji's life, was worth? A substitution, a convenience to absolve the main house of their own mistakes?

Was this fate?

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" The Yondaime asked. Hizashi's eyes flickered to the side, to Neji.

"No, Hokage-sama."

It was.

"Then I suppose that's that," The Yondaime said, tilting his conical hat back over his eyes to hide his... smile? What? "Will you come quietly?"

Hizashi nodded, standing tall and proud and defiant. "For the Hyuuga, and for Konoha, I will."

"Very well. Will this be sufficient, Kusaka?" The Yondaime asked. The delegate from Kumo relaxed, his gaze viciously satisfied as he looked upon the "head" of the Hyuuga clan.

"It'll do," he rumbled. "But Raikage-sama won't forget how you began our alliance. I'd tread softly in future negotiations, Hokage." If anything, Neji thought, the Yondaime only smiled wider at the pointed lack of an honorific. What was going on? What was _funny _about this?

"Of course, of course," he said. "I'll make sure to discuss the particulars with A when we arrive."

The satisfaction and budding confidence drained from the foreign shinobi all at once, along with a fair bit of blood in his face. Neji felt his uncle's grip on him relax and heard his father release a quiet sigh. The elder smiled softly.

"We?" Kusaka asked roughly.

"Your delegation, Hyuuga-san, and myself, yes," the Yondaime said, as if he were explaining that the sky was blue and he was fast. "Given it was my village that this mess took place in, it only make sense that I escort you home with your recompense."

"That isn't necessary-"

"No, please." The Yondaime Hokage tilted his head, eyes glittering with amusement and something _else_. "I insist."

"I-" Kusaka hesitated, took stock of the situation, and made his decision. "I'll ask Raikage-sama."

"You do that," the Yondaime said pleasantly. The bulky Kumo nin slide the paper door open with perhaps more force than necessary and stormed past the chunin waiting dutifully outside the room. A few seconds later, the sound of his footsteps faded from the hallway.

Then, and only then, did the Yondaime laugh.

The light, carefree sound shattered the remaining tension, and the Hyuuga clan's most influential members slumped into their seats with varying levels of decorum. Only the elder remained in his position, having never moved from his seiza in the first place. He took a long sip from his tea, draining it, and turned milky white eyes in the Yondaime's general direction.

"That was incredibly risky, Hokage-sama," he said, his words void of any judgement, good or bad.

"I liked my odds," the Yondaime replied, eyes crinkling.

"And if you had misjudged the delegate? If you have misjudged the Raikage, and he invites you to Kumo? Is my son's life an acceptable loss?" The elder's voice did not raise, or fluctuate, or just about anything to indicate a heightened state of emotion. If anything, he sounded curious.

The Yondaime made a so-so gesture, waving a voluminous white sleeve back and forth.

"Not quite. If A invites me to Kumo, he'll be trying to call a bluff he can't afford to call. You were never in any immediate danger, Hizashi," he finished, smiling mischievously at Neji's father. He had _known_. The whole time he'd known what Neji's father was doing, but he hadn't said anything. Because it hadn't mattered.

"You..." Neji began, trailing off when he realized he had control of his body again.

"Me?" the Yondaime prompted him.

"What do you mean 'a bluff he can't afford to call'?" Neji asked, mind working furiously to decipher the legendary shinobi's plan. "If he told you to- to kill my father, and you said no, wouldn't he...?"

"Declare war?" the Yondaime finished. "I imagine so, yes. And I'd be in his village, free to cover it with as many of my special tags as I wanted before I took your father back home."

"Hiraishin," the elder mused. "That solves the immediate problem, I suppose. Though this will make diplomacy nigh impossible in the future, you realize?"

"I'm beginning to think that was inevitable," he admitted.

"But did it have to be here, Minato-sama?" Hiashi asked, speaking up for the first time since the Kumo nin's entrance. "I understand your plan, and I can not begin to tell you how grateful I am for the tragedy you have saved my family from, but the enemy now has an even greater knowledge of our compound than they already did. If they attempt this again, the information that man just gathered will improve their chances dramatically."

"Will it, now?" the Yondaime asked. He tilted his head, shooting an empty corner of the ceiling a questioning look. "What do you think, Shisui?"

Every single Hyuuga in the room, including Neji, immediately called upon their byakugan to root out the apparent observer, only for it to become a moot point when he melted into visibility at the Yondaime's question. The masked shinobi, garbed in the muted blacks and grays of the Hokage's personal ANBU force, dropped to the ground in a silent crouch at the Yondaime's feet.

"Target had little chakra awareness to speak of," Shisui said, removing his mask and hood in one motion, revealing a shock of midnight black hair, pale, handsomely cut features, and a pair of blood red eyes. "Genjutsu was a success, Hokage-sama."

"Uchiha," the yukata-wearing jonin muttered.

"So if Kusaka-san were to illustrate what he learned of the Hyuuga Compound's layout, what would it end up looking like?" The Yondaime asked curiously, eyes bright. Shisui's lips twitched at the corners, the only tell in an otherwise perfect expression of apathy.

"Something like a hiraishin tag, Hokage-sama."

Hizashi chuckled.

Neji's father... _laughed_. And a moment later, so did his uncle.

"Do I seem a bit less crazy now?" the Yondaime asked Neji, brushing past Shisui and kneeling down to eye level with the bewildered academy student. Neji made a faint sound of affirmation, struggling desperately to wrap his head around it all.

"He never had a chance," he finally said. And it was true. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his father had never been in danger of dying. Neither had his uncle, for that matter. The Hokage had been in control from the very beginning.

"That's the goal," the Yondaime said, ruffling Neji's hair and favoring him with a grin. "A good shinobi doesn't fight fair if they can help it. A great shinobi _never _fights fair, whatever fate and circumstance have to say on the subject."

With that said, the Hokage rose and bid the gathered Hyuuga farewell, walking out the door with his ANBU hot on his heels and fading into the background with every step. Neji watched him go, and in that moment he found himself presented with a new path, a new possibility separate from that of a branch house servant. A new _life_.

Neji looked upon the fate the Hokage had saved his father from, and he vowed to become one of the _great _shinobi, to live on his own terms- whatever fate and circumstance had to say on the subject.


	4. Dream Team (1?)

Minato wasn't sure why his son had chosen the flute.

He didn't know anyone in Konoha that played it, and Naruto spent so little time in the village that it wouldn't have mattered if he did. Jiraiya, for all his talents, knew next to nothing about wind instruments. Indeed, he'd fought tooth and nail to get his son interested in the violin, insisting that it was far superior when it came to serenading classy women. It had almost swayed the young boy, but in the end he'd stood firm.

Perhaps he'd seen a traveling performer working their magic while Jiraiya was otherwise indisposed and been inspired. Or perhaps he'd seen the delicate metal rod at a merchant's stall and decided he simply liked the look of it. Minato wouldn't be surprised one way or another.

However it came to him, Naruto certainly hadn't squandered the lessons his godfather procured for him. If his sensei was to be believed, his son practiced day in and day out, teasing notes from the wind in every free moment. All in the name of wooing the moon. All in the name of love.

He'd certainly come a long way.

His son's soft, haunting melody twisted and whirled through the window behind his desk, soothing the aching fingers and throbbing temples a long day's work had inflicted upon him. Minato scrawled his name on another document, sliding the important proposal off his desk to join the rest on the floor. Out of sight, out of mind.

He sighed, kneading the exhaustion from his eyes as best he could. When he opened them again, he found the pile of proposals stacked neatly at the edge of his desk, just outside easy reach.

"Think that'll stop me, hm?" he asked, amused. An empty room and his son's muted notes were his only answer. "Maybe you're right." Maybe he needed a break.

Leaning back in his chair, Minato allowed himself a moment to bask in the night's cool breeze and the gentle sleeping sounds of his village. Then he reached out to the tag atop the Hokage Tower and vanished in a flash of flying thunder.

He appeared perched on one of the arching spires that ringed the tower's roof. Beside him, his son continued to play, unconcerned with the sudden addition to his audience.

And an audience it was. Minato smiled, nodding to the shinobi gathered on the rooftops surrounding the Hokage Tower. He wasn't entirely sure when it had started, or how, but his son's midnight serenades had gathered something of a following. Only the stray one or two at first, but as time passed and Naruto's skill grew, so too did his following.

It was mostly those who needed the distraction. Veterans and troubled sleepers, shinobi who appreciated the relaxing melodies and the sight of their Hokage's son alive and well. Minato enjoyed it for much the same reason.

Then, of course, there were the admirers. Minato's smile turned sly as he spotted more than a few kunoichi looking longingly up at his son, of varying rank and age. Quite a long way, indeed.

Naruto leaned into the last note of his melody, brow furrowing in concentration as he drew the low, mournful note out into the air. He didn't draw back from the flute until the sound of it had mingled and faded entirely with the breeze, and when he did it was with a disappointed sigh.

"You've improved," Minato noted, leaning back against the slope of the spire. His son shrugged, running a hand through his hair.

It was long, an inch or two longer than his own, and perpetually windswept. His admirers were quite smitten with it, and while Kushina scolded the young man often enough for becoming a flaky pretty boy like his father, Minato was sure she loved it most of all. She had yet to suggest he cut it, at any rate.

"Sensei says I'm still an amateur, and I think she agrees," Naruto said. "Ten years, and she hasn't listened to a single note." He frowned, looking thoughtfully up to the sky. "Maybe she doesn't like the flute?"

"Maybe you should try looking down," he suggested, because that's what he always suggested.

"My heart's up there, dad. With her."

"So you say."

They went through this song and dance almost every day, it felt like. If it wasn't his mother ordering him to get a girlfriend or the Hyuuga subtly tempting him towards one of their girls, it was Minato sitting up here, listening to him play and wishing he'd just notice one of the kunoichi who were already there. Already listening.

His son's infatuation with the moon had been humorous in the beginning, even a bit cute, but that had been a decade ago. He was sixteen now, halfway to becoming a man, and he hadn't wavered once since then. If anything, his affections had grown _stronger_.

And it worried Minato. Because he knew his son. The rest of the world might think the whole thing a joke, might pass it off as some ploy for attention, but Minato knew. The emotion in his eyes when he looked to the sky was all too real.

Minato didn't want that for his son. He wanted the world. Not a love that could never be returned.

"Something's wrong," Naruto finally said.

"Relationship troubles?" Minato asked, the picture perfect father concerned for his son's problems. Not at all a leader with ulterior motives. Not at all.

His son was unimpressed. "Something's wrong and you're not telling me," he amended.

He was catching on. Best throw him off the trail now. "I disagree."

"It's date night. You never make me stay over on date night. That means you brought me back because sensei had something he needed to do without me tagging along." Naruto glanced at him sidelong, eyes sharp and knowing. Like looking in a mirror.

"I haven't been left behind in a long time. It's something big."

Oh, he was good. Minato would have to consider his next few words carefully.

"I _strongly _disagree."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Hypothetically, then, if something _was _wrong. When would you be planning to tell me about it?"

"If something was wrong," Minato echoed thoughtfully. "It's difficult to imagine, since everything's fine-"

"Dad."

"But if I had to answer," he said, continuing on over his son. "I'd say that there's going to be a mission briefing in my office at dawn. If something was wrong I'd be assembling a team of talented shinobi to deal with the issue, and you'd be one of them. At that briefing, that's when you'd get your answers."

Now to drive it home.

"Hypothetically."

"Dawn, got it." Naruto brought the flute back up to his lips, fingers dancing across the keys as he drifted through a simple scale. Then he changed his grip on the instrument, fingers poised for another sonata. He threw Minato a curious look. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Taking a break from work," he said, stifling a yawn and throwing an arm around his son's shoulders.

"You're working? On date night?"

"Thought I'd catch up on some busywork. Your mother fell asleep a while ago," he explained. "People call me the Yellow Flash, you know, but she's always the first to crash at the end of a vigorous night."

His son grimaced. "Dad, please."

"Hm? Oh! Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He winked. "Though that's true, too."

"_Please._"

"Too much for the great romantic?"

"You're my parents!" Naruto protested. "I'm not trying to woo _mom_."

"You better not be," Minato said, mussing up his hair. "You might look just like me, but you've got a long way to go before you can out-woo Namikaze Minato!"

Naruto shoved him off, fighting a smile. "I don't look _just _like you. I've got the whisker marks, a tan, youthful good looks-"

"Oho! Sounds like someone wants to spend the rest of the night playing in Snow Country."

"I wouldn't mind," Naruto admitted. "There are hardly any lights in Snow. You can see the whole sky at night, all the stars and..." His son stole a glance at the moon, as if it would catch him in the act were he too bold.

"It's breathtaking."

Minato's own smile dimmed. He tilted his head back. Not for the first time, he tried to look upon the heavens with the same gravity that a little boy had so many years ago, every time his father tucked him into bed at night. The same gravity of a young man, now, with a flute in his hands and his heart in his throat.

It was difficult. It always was. But if he didn't try, no one else would.

"It's saddening," Minato said, not sure if he was disagreeing, or merely enforcing his son's statement. Difficult to say. "Trapped up there, surrounded by so much light. So many memories. So much loss."

Were those thoughts and feelings real? Was that cold, crushing depression he felt every time he tried to look to the moon as a woman a real impression, or just his own desperate attempts to empathize with his son? Was he being played, all these years later? The only one not in on the joke, the fool encouraging a child's delusion because he wanted to be a good father. The _best_ father.

Difficult to say.

"She is," Naruto murmured, lowering his flute. After a long, somber moment, he asked, "Dad?"

"Hm?"

"What would your Hell Viewing look like?"

The Demonic Hell Viewing. An illusion that showed the target a vision of their worst fear. The one thing they'd never want to see. Their ultimate nightmare.

Minato didn't even have to think about it.

"Quite a question to spring on date night," he said. Naruto's lips quirked, but nothing more. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't think I can be with her until I understand," his son admitted. "I can feel what she's going through, but I don't _get it_. It's just... I can't understand pain like hers. I haven't _lived _enough. I can't even imagine it.

"Can you?"

Could he? Minato considered the moon's pain, its living nightmare, and compared it to his own.

Compared it to Kushina looking wistfully at their son's old nursery, dashing angry tears from the medical report she'd been handed after her first birth, asking him in the quietest of moments if he resented her for being broken. Scarred. _Barren_. Compared it to his son on the roof, reaching out to a being that would never reach back, casting his heart out to the one woman in the world that could never accept it.

Ah.

Familiar.

"It would look like you and your mother," Minato said quietly. "Hurt, dead, gone. Out of my reach. Forever."

The moon's silver rays grew harsh. Jagged. Maybe a trick of the light, maybe his own exhaustion. Difficult to say.

"And it would be all my fault."

* * *

"Hokage-sama?" Sparrow called, voice naught but a whisper. Minato sighed, a slow, deliberate motion, relishing his last few moments of absolute calm. Then he opened his eyes.

The world shifted and blurred around him, the vast energies that made up nature and all its wonders draining from him in one sharp pull. Left a regular man once more, Minato dismissed the last foggy vestiges of meditation from his mind and addressed the elite operative in charge of the door to his office. A recently promoted chunin from the Sarutobi clan, if he recalled correctly.

He smiled, inclining his head. "Good morning, Sparrow. How's your shift going?"

"Quietly, Hokage-sama."

"I'm not much for company while I'm meditating," he confessed, rubbing at his throat and reaching out for an empty space on his desk.

A flicker of movement, white cloth fluttering past his head, and Minato's fingers closed around a glass of water. The rookie on guard went rigid, but Minato waved him off before he could leap into action.

"Thank you, Commander," he murmured, taking a sip. Silence was his answer, as it always was. "Now, was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"Sir. Your six o'clock is here."

Minato blinked. "Already? I told you to wake me an hour ago." Silence.

The rookie ANBU immediately bowed his head, allowing nothing but apology past the ceramic plating of his mask. "Forgive me. I misheard-"

"Oh, no, not you," Minato said, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "You're doing just fine, Sparrow. Thank you for informing me. Send them in."

The young shinobi hesitated for only a moment before nodding and withdrawing from the room, and Minato cast an exasperated look at the empty space to his right. Then the door swung open, heavyset oak groaning against hinges that were kept in just the right amount of disrepair to warn you when they moved, and one of Minato's favorite students came gliding in. The young man bowed low as soon as he crossed the office's threshold, coal black bangs falling across his face with the motion.

"Hokage-sama."

"Itachi," Minato said warmly, gesturing for Konoha's youngest elite jonin to stand. "It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten what you looked like."

"Three days, I believe," Itachi replied, smiling faintly. "My mission was a success. I've compiled the specifics, if you'd like to read while I debrief."

Mikoto's eldest procured a scroll from the folds of his jonin flak jacket, tops and bottoms bordered in red and emblazoned with the Hokage's symbol. He made to place the mission report on Minato's desk, but a flicker of white cloth and the slightest kiss of wind against his ponytail left him with one less scroll, and Minato with one more. His smile withered and died on his lips.

Minato shook his head, cracking open the report. It was always something with those two. His students could be so territorial.

"Seems things went well," he said, heading off Itachi's oral debrief while he scanned the scroll. His written reports were always so extensive that the oral portion of his debrief was little more than a vocalization of their contents, Minato had found.

Itachi nodded, silent. He'd stopped complaining about the breach in protocol long ago.

"Alright!" Minato snapped the scroll shut with a flick of his wrist, holding it up to the empty air, into which it disappeared in another flicker of white cloth. "Everything looks to be in order, here. Congratulations on a job well done, check's in the mail, and so on and so forth."

"Something's wrong," Itachi observed.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Tell me, Itachi," Minato said, leaning forward and clasping his hands on his desk. "What do you think of children?"

Itachi's lips pursed.

"They are our future," he said, after a contemplative moment's silence. "They are the first priority in a dangerous situation, and the last resource to turn to in times of war and strife. They are generally smaller than the average adult, possess a set of impermanent teeth that are lost somewhere between the ages of-"

"Very good," Minato cut in. It was risky at times, giving the somber jonin an open ended question like that. "More specifically, what do you think of older children? Say, ages sixteen to seventeen?"

"I think those aren't children at all."

"Alright, we'll come back to the children. What do you think of being a jonin sensei?" Minato gave his second quietest student his most winning smile.

"It's an honorable position, and I respect those who choose to assume it," Itachi said slowly. "But I must confess, it isn't something I've ever considered for myself. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I believe my skills are better suited to serving Konoha directly, completing high risk missions that others will not. I don't know that I have what it takes to be a serviceable sensei, let alone one of your caliber."

"Ah, but what if you could have both?" Minato asked, plucking a folder out of the empty air, courtesy of his quietest student. He slid the folder across his desk, and at his encouraging nod Itachi picked it up and began leafing through its contents. "All the excitement of a suicide mission with a team of cute little students to match?"

"These... do not seem like shinobi in need of a sensei," Itachi finally said, flipping through the folder. "One of them is already a jonin."

Minato waved a hand, dismissing the detail. "He was only promoted a few months ago. He's got a long way to go before he can call himself a veteran, let alone an elite. He needs just as much guidance as the other two."

"What guidance, Hokage-sama?" Itachi asked, honestly curious. "From what I can see, there isn't much for me to teach them outside my own personal techniques. They're all exceptional for their ages, and well-rounded for their ranks."

Minato raised an eyebrow. The elite jonin's lips pursed again, a sure sign that he was considering Minato's suggestion carefully. He flipped back through the folder, eyes flitting from report to report at a blistering pace as he worked through the problem he'd been presented with. Minato, meanwhile, finished the last of his water and leaned back in his cushy chair, content to let the young man puzzle it out.

Being Itachi, it only took him a minute.

"They are too exceptional," he murmured.

Minato nodded, pleased. "Exactly. All three excelled in their various specializations, and spent far less time in their genin cells than their peers as a result. They're better shinobi for it, overall, but there are more than a few holes in their education that their sensei didn't have the time to fill. They need someone to fill those gaps for them, and unfortunately, they're all too stubborn to accept a sensei who isn't powerful enough to treat them like the unruly children they are if push comes to shove."

He chuckled, gesturing to the folder. "And as you can see, there aren't many shinobi who could handle all three of them at once."

"I see." Itachi gave the biographies one last look through, then snapped the folder shut.

He made to place the forest green file back on Minato's desk, only to pull it back sharply, just outside the reach of the fluttering white cloth. His lips twitched up into a faint shadow of his clan's infamous smirk, and then the cloth flickered back around and snatched the folder into thin air, sending the elite jonin stumbling forward a step in the process. Smirk turned to scowl.

Minato sighed.

"Hokage-sama." Sparrow appeared once more, kneeling beside Itachi with one hand on his knee and the other pressed flat against the floor. Perfect form. Minato would have to put in a good word for him the next time he saw the boy's captain.

"Another guest?"

"Yes, sir. Tokubetsu jonin Uchiha Sasuke."

"Wonderful. Send him in, please."

Sparrow nodded, and with another creaking groan of wood and aching hinges, the operative disappeared and an Uchiha entered in his place.

Sasuke took one step into the room and froze, locking eyes with his brother. A heavy, syrupy sort of silence fell upon Minato's office, coating every surface and slowing everything down to a crawl. Mikoto and Fugaku's children, the once heir and current exile, and the once spare and current heir. They were of a height, finally, with Sasuke actually outpacing his older brother by a fraction of an inch, and that made their stare down all the more intense.

He coughed politely, and the moment was broken.

Sasuke entered the room fully, ignoring his brother, and bowed at the waist. His bangs obscured his features with the motion, much like his brother, though his hair was much shorter overall. He straightened, headband catching the light of the rising sun, and its metal gleamed over the bandages that all of the Uchiha wore on their foreheads these days. His flak jacket, faded green and covered in pockets, looked well worn for the short time he'd had it.

Minato smiled. He probably hadn't stopped wearing it since his promotion. "Good morning, Sasuke. How was yesterday's patrol?"

"Irritating," the tokubetsu jonin replied, relaxing into a more casual stance. "Tanosuke and Yutaka thought that since I was younger than both of them, they'd ignore my orders and rough up a couple civilians who were insulting our mothers."

"And?" Minato asked, reigning in a chuckle at the mental image.

Sasuke scowled. "I dealt with them."

"Not too harshly, I hope?"

"They'll make it to their next shift."

"Charisma motivates more than force, Sasuke," he chided. When the young man simply stared at him in response, he amended, "Though they're best when put together, yes. Just don't be too strict with your family." He leaned forward, giving him a meaningful look. "We're all citizens of Konoha, at the end of the day. We're all emotional."

"When we can afford to be," Sasuke said, pointedly ignoring his older brother's disapproving frown.

Minato's eyes crinkled. "Then be kind to them when you can afford it, alright?"

The face of the Uchiha clan, the young man that had taken their burdens and the village's prejudices upon his shoulders and thrived in spite of them, exhaled and bowed his head. His lips twitched up.

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you." Minato clapped his hands. "Now, I hear you've been putting in requests for jonin-level missions since your promotion?"

Sasuke nodded. "They're always gone by the time I get to the missions office, though," he said wryly. "Must be my luck."

"Actually, that's my fault," Minato admitted. At the tokubetsu jonin's shocked, almost betrayed look, he quickly said, "I've been waiting for the right team to ease you into your new responsibilities, and of course the right mission to start you off. It took me some time, which is why you've been on patrol so much these last few weeks. But today's the day!"

"The right team," Sasuke repeated, looking at his brother for the first time since entering the room. "You're putting me on a team with him?"

Minato smiled winningly. "Itachi and two others, yes."

Sasuke eyed his elite sibling, and his elite sibling eyed him right back. Then, right before that syrupy silence could return in full force, he snorted.

"Something's wrong."

"Nothing is wrong," Minato insisted. Why did everyone think something was wrong?

"Then why-" The Uchiha heir began.

"Sasuke, look at my face," he demanded. Sasuke looked at his face. "Does this look like the face of someone who doesn't know what he's talking about?"

"No, sir."

"What does it look like?"

"Your face, sir."

"Thank you. Sparrow! Send Neji in," he called. There was a short, startled pause, and then the door to the Hokage's office swung open for the third time. Hyuuga Neji entered with all the poise and thinly veiled arrogance of a newly promoted jonin, stepping up to his desk between Sasuke and Itachi and inclining his head respectfully.

As he did, he glanced sidelong at Sasuke, eyes moving meaningfully down to the Uchiha's flak jacket. It was slightly different than the Hyuuga's own, by virtue of the fact that Neji had earned the full promotion to jonin, while Sasuke had fallen just short, settling for tokubetsu specializations in ninjutsu and kenjutsu. The gesture was not lost on his rival, and tension returned to the room thinker than before as the two prodigious shinobi glared one another down.

Minato rolled his eyes. So many petty rivalries in the room. He was almost afraid to throw his son into the mix.

Almost.

He coughed again, a bit less politely this time, and the rookies in the room straightened up. "My apologies," Neji murmured. "You called for me, Hokage-sama?"

"Indeed. I have a mission I'd like you to be a part of, if you think you're up for it," Minato said. The up and coming prodigy of the Hyuuga clan considered this, a small shift in his stance giving away his surprise. It wasn't every day a boy his age was specially requested for a mission by the Hokage, Minato supposed.

"I assume Uchiha-san and Uchiha-san will be accompanying me?" Neji asked.

"Them and one other, yes. He should be getting here any minute."

"This is quite a team," Neji mused. "Hokage-sama, is something-"

"No."

The Hyuuga prodigy blinked, startled. "But I didn't-"

"You didn't have to. The answer is no. Nothing." Why were all his students so paranoid? Maybe they needed a break. "At any rate, once the last member of your team arrives we'll get into the specifics of just what it is you'll be doing in the days to come."

"Who's the fourth man?" Sasuke asked.

And then came the flute.

Right on cue, as always. Timing had always been sensei's strong suit.

The wind instrument's first two notes rang sharp and clear through Minato's office, and the rookies in the room whipped around to its source, kunai falling into their hands and chakra surging into their eyes. They weren't used to being snuck up on, it seemed. Minato shared an amused glance with Itachi. Ah, youth.

"Who-" Sasuke snapped, only to jerk back when he caught sight of the young man sitting in the open window behind Minato's desk. Neji froze likewise, gaze flitting from the new arrival, to Minato, and back again.

Naruto's fingers danced up and down the keys of his flute, and from them sprung a melody Minato had never heard before. It was different from the usual serenades, less mournful and more upbeat. Not quite as emotional, but just as attention-grabbing. Impressive, and somehow nostalgic.

His son brushed off the last few notes with enviable ease, the pure white cloak his godfather had given him for their recent trek to Snow Country fluttering elegantly around him in a breeze that hadn't been there a moment ago. When the last note died he pulled the instrument from his lips and spun it once, sealing it in a flash of smoke and chakra.

He inclined his head to the room's inhabitants, flashing them all a charming grin. "Namikaze Naruto. Pleased to meet you."

"Sasuke, Neji, meet my son, Naruto," Minato said, taking far more amusement in their incredulity than a good leader probably should. "He'll be rounding out your team for this mission, joining you under Itachi's command. And now that he's here, we can begin with the briefing."

With that said, Minato snapped his fingers, and a flicker of white cloth later caught a scroll as long as his forearm and twice as thick around. It was ringed top to bottom in Konoha's rich crimson, just as Itachi's report had been, but instead of sporting the symbol for Minato's own village, it was embossed with an entirely different country's kanji.

_Demon_.

"Gentlemen," Minato said gravely, unraveling the SOS. "Something is wrong."


End file.
